Big Damn Heroes: During the opening sequence, he meddles in Cecil's fight with Golbez, helping Cecil break free from one of the mage's attempted attacks. He also saves Tifa from Ultimecia when the latter attempts to kill her.

Determinator: To nearly ridiculous extents. In addition to dealing with the conflict of the gods, he's been running around killing off his allies to prevent them from being permanently offed by the manikins. Then he faces Exdeath, who retreats while leaving a pack of manikins (in Kain's form) to fight in his stead. He then saves Tifa from Ultimecia. Then he has a You Shall Not Pass moment against Golbez and Exdeath (mostly Exdeath, though; Golbez really wasn't helping out). After this, he's shown to be physically drained, battered, and bruised, and yet he drags his body to the source of the manikins, catching up to the main group just in time to aid them in a battle that he knows will — without a doubt — lead to his death.And he gives it his very all, from start to finish.

The Atoner: After being called out by Lightning on his plan (see below), Kain's actions for the remainder of the story are pretty much a retread of his ordeals in IV. Also, it's hinted that Kain is fearful of Cecil regaining his memories of him from their world due to said ordeals.

What You Are in the Dark: In the Epilogue chapter, the entirety of the storyline applied to Kain after he confronts Exdeath and Golbez functions as an extended one of these. Kain had, then, a myriad of opportunities to escape Final Death at the hands of the manikins, and could have lived to fight in the next cycle. No one would have known, if he had chosen to take them, save for Golbez who pretty much asked him to. Yet, he didn't. Kain drags himself through apparent hell and high water to get to the Last Stand, despite it all. Considering both the morally dubious nature of his role in the storyline and his reputation in the fandom as a backstabbing traitor in his original game, it's a nice way to establish that no, Kain really is a good guy.

The Worf Effect: Subjects other characters to it — Kain is the one who beat Bartz, Zidane, Squall, and Firion, and he probably beat the Onion Knight and Cecil too. Of course, he typically beats them with liberal use of the age old strategy of In the Back.

Gameplay and Combat Tropes

Blown Across the Room: Gungnir, Rising Drive, and Sky Rave, granted there's enough room, will drive the opponent back, up, and down. Unless you happen to be on a particularly large arena like The Rift or Dream's End, they will hit a wall — they get knocked back that far.

Wind is Green: He stands out in this regard, since aside from Vaan's Windburst, every other air-elemental attack in the game is gray.

Boring but Practical: He has one of the smallest Bravery skillsets in the game, with two ground attacks, three aerial, and ground and midair versions of Cyclone. However, they cover most strategic options a melee fighter needs (attack from above, attack from below, short-range but quick, slow charging attack), so they're all he needs to be effective, especially once you learn how to chain them together.

Death from Above: He's a Dragoon, so this is expected. Sky Rave and Jump are the most prominent examples. His EX Burst is the apotheosis of this.

Difficult but Awesome: His gimmick is that you can press Triangle after landing a Bravery attack to dash forward and attack again while the opponent is still reeling from the first blow. However, the timing is very difficult to get right.

Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His EX Burst is most notable in this regard, but a lot of Kain's attacks are, with the frills stripped off, various ways to put his spear through his opponent's body as fast and as far as he can.

In a Single Bound/Jump Physics: His specialty, and part of a unique fighting gimmick he has — after he lands a Bravery attack, pressing Triangle has Kain quickly dash at the opponent in any direction, faster than your normal dash most likely, and has a trailing wind-type graphic so he almost seems to glide.

Javelin Thrower: Gungnir. Doubles as a dual Mythology Gag — Gungnir is both the final spear Kain comes equipped with when he rejoins the party for the final time, and an attack used by recurring summon Odin where he throws his spear at opponents immune to Zantetsuken.

Lightning Bruiser: His Bravery attacks execute quickly, they do great damage, can variably lead to Chase or Wall Rush depending on your needs, and his HP attacks are versatile and also do a lot of Bravery damage along with Wall Rush. What holds him back is his predictable attack list and his lack of ranged options.

Magically Inept Fighter: Kain has exactly one magic attack, Cyclone. Though it does have its utilities in setting the opponent, it's most ineffective, and Kain has to rely on his spear skills to beat up opponents.

Mythology Gag: Two of his attacks, Spiral Blow and Sky Grinder, are his Band attacks from The After Years performed with Golbez and Cecil, respectively.

Power Glows: His lance does when performing some of his Brave attacks and all of his HP attacks.

Yet another Ensemble Darkhorse makes it into 012. This time, it's the legendary Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V, armed with his wide assortment of weapons and the blazing flame of his winning spirit. Contrary to popular belief, Gilgamesh fights for neither Cosmos nor Chaos. Sometime after his banishment by Exdeath, he wanders into World B from the Rift.

General Tropes

Ascended Extra: Gilgamesh appeared in the first game as a summon stone.

Card-Carrying Villain: Parodied in an official quest where he runs across Prishe. When she asks if he's a Warrior of Chaos, Gilgamesh takes her question as meaning the force of chaos, not the god, so he heartily replies he is indeed a chaotic warrior who loves to battle!

Collector of the Strange: His summon profile in the original game says that "he fancies himself a seeker of rare blades."

Gilgamesh: (to Squall) Wow, a gunblade! You're a connoisseur!

Daydream Surprise: In Report 19, Gilgamesh thinks how his duel with Bartz should turn out.

Easy Come, Easy Go/Failure Is the Only Option: According to the Official Quests, he's entered World B a total of three times in his search for Bartz. Each time, he gets sucked back into the Rift after fighting someone, even if he won.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Averted: He is in fact one of the few warriors to actually remember their pasts prior to joining the conflict of the gods, and he's not even one of the soldiers recruited as much as a third party who stumbled upon it, which causes hilarity to ensue when he tries to get Bartz (who holds only a handful of memories of his home world) to remember him.

The Unintelligible: With the music and attack sounds playing over them, a lot of his attack calls can be hard to decipher.

Unknown Rival: He has dedicated himself to escaping the Rift so that he can challenge Bartz to a rematch. Bartz's reaction? "Who are you?". Justified in that, for the most part, few people in Dissidia retain memories of their world, so Bartz really CAN'T remember him.

Lampshaded in a cutscene where Vaan, Zidane, and Squall (the ones who have met him outside remakes) encounter him, but because of purifications, do not remember who he is. Zidane almost does, but dismisses it because he only has two arms, a reference to Alleyway Jack, a six-armed minor character in his own game who is revealed, after several side-quests, to be Gilgamesh.

Gameplay and Combat Tropes

Awesome but Impractical: His weapon effects range from a chance to instantly Break the opponent, doing double base damage, depleting their EX Gauge, and generating significantly higher EX Force. If only he didn't use those weapons completely at random — thanks, Excalipoor.

His Assist is also notable in this regard. He only ever uses Excalibur or Excalipoor when called, and if he uses Excalibur, he does the most damage of any Assist in the game. If he uses Excalipoor, well, as least he still Wall Rushes to set them up for another attack.

And then his EX Burst. The most powerful in the game by quite a bit, if he gets it right. If not, he uses Excalipoor again, and guess how it's going to go.

Confusion Fu: As Gilgamesh fights, he uses a random weapon for each attack, with effects ranging from generating more EX Force when he hits, to possibly instantly breaking the opponent, to doing twice as much damage, to only dealing one damage per hit.

Death-or-Glory Attack: A perfect execution of his EX Burst makes it the most powerful EX Burst in the game. On a failure, it's the weakest in the game, barely does any damage, and you still lose your EX Gauge.

Desperation Attack: The Chicken Knife builds in power as Gilgamesh's HP decreases. Amusingly, this effect is rather like the Valiant Knife from Final Fantasy VI, which is rather ironicnote "Valiant" means "Brave", and the Chicken Knife is supposed to be powered by cowardice.

Gilgamesh reveals his eight-armedtrue form from his debut game. In addition to Regen, Gilgamesh's EX Mode gives him the following ability:

Octo Break: As Gilgamesh enters his EX Mode, he takes up a weapon for each of his eight hands, until the end of the EX Mode. He will either wield eight of the same weapon, four different weapons each with one duplicate, two different weapons each with three duplicates, one of every weapon, or even some other combination; because of how random Gilgamesh's EX Mode actually is, there's roughly 16,777,216 different ways his EX Mode can turn out. In addition to extra hits for all physical attacks, this means that during his EX Mode, his abilities are far more reliable than usual, and can therefore be planned around. However, there's the very real chance that he'll end up wielding multiple Excalipoors, in which case you'll want to exit EX mode fast. While he is enjoying this benefit, HP attacks not reliant on swords are also improved. His Rocket Punch shoots eight fists instead of two and the Missile spell fires two missiles.

Gilgamesh Morphing Time also gives Gilgamesh access to his EX Burst: Strongest Sword.

Gilgamesh is presented with eight blades, spinning around like a roulette wheel in front of him. One of these blades is Excalibur. All the others are Excalipoor. Once you choose one, Gilgamesh launches into a long sword-combo upon the enemy. Pick Excalibur, and it does amazing damage, and Gilgamesh finishes his attack with Ultimate Illusion, a final swing that launches an erupting wave of energy at the opponent.

Spirited Competitor: It's his trademark, and this time is no different, with a few of his victory/defeat quotes centering on the concept of looking for a Worthy Opponent. And of course, he's always trying to find Bartz.

Stout Strength: Pretty much the only character that subscribes to this trope — even the other giants (Exdeath, Golbez, Garland) have pretty waspy waists.

Tifa Lockhart

"We're not some faceless soldiers. We're friends, and we've been through a lot together."

One of her Brave attacks is named "Falcon Dive." A cross-company shout out? Why should they do that? Maybe because Kazushige Nojima, scenario writer for FFVII, wrote the plot behind Brawl's Subspace Emissary.

Turn the Other Cheek: While Tifa is uncertain whether Kain's decision to kill their friends to save them from the manikins is right or not, she knows Kain believes what he's doing is right and decides to follow him and keep fighting anyway.

Betting Mini-Game: Tifa's EX Burst uses the Slot mechanic of her Limit Break. Fortunately, it's not completely up to chance, and once you get the rhythm of the button presses down, getting a Perfect isn't too difficult.

Boobs of Steel: It's Tifa. There would be riots in the streets if they had her any other way.

Foil: To Squall, in their few interactions. It's encapsulated in their attitudes towards the other warriors; Squall doesn't see a point in making friends since he's focused on getting home, while Laguna embraces the chance to get to know people from so many different worlds, and advises Squall to "enjoy the now."

Large Ham: Laguna sometimes speaks in an over-emotional tone to other characters to lighten up the mood.

Mental Time Travel: His EX Mode is a reference to this. In the original game, when Ellone's Mental Time Travel ability sends Squall and his friends into scenes from his past, Laguna and his friends are aware of the boost to their strength and combat abilities, but attribute it to "faeries".

"It's not that I have a bad sense of direction. I'm just interested in all directions."

Obfuscating Stupidity: At first, his encounter with the Cloud of Darkness makes him look like a complete idiot, but Laguna was able to get some pretty vital information about the manikins, without breaking character as the team goofball at that.

Punny Name: The first part of "Ragnarok" is pronounced the same way as Laguna in Japanese (Raguna-roku).

The Smart Guy: Yes, while being an Idiot Hero. Despite being a klutz and a bit of a loon, Laguna is the most intellectual of the new heroes, bringing a map with him (even if he misreads it) and finding out the location of the Manikins and leading the group to them. He also far and away has the most strategic fighting style among them.

"You've awakened the genius!"note A reference to Laguna calling himself a genius in FFVIII, but "genius" in this context may have its archaic meaning of "Guardian Force".

Laguna is empowered by the presence of a mysterious force and casts Aura on his weapons, giving them a golden sheen befitting of the President of Esthar. In addition to Regen, Laguna's EX Mode gives him the following ability:

Irony: As Tidus said in Final Fantasy X watching Yuna perform the Sending, "people die, and Yuna dances". Well, now the Sending is her EX Burst, so it's exactly the other way around.

There also is some parallelism to Tidus' journey and revelations in X. In X, Tidus sacrifices himself to save Yuna from giving up her life to summon the Final Aeon and finally vanquish Sin and Yu Yevon once and for all. Here, it is Yuna, by virtue of the group Heroic Sacrifice enacted to prevent the influx of manikins from overwhelming the other warriors in the next cycle, who essentially does the same for Tidus.

Just Whistle: Tries to whistle for Tidus to come back to her early in her story. It works... not that Tidus wants to admit it.

Adds on as a Mythology Gag (along with so many others, of course); early in X, Tidus tells Yuna that if she's ever in trouble, she should Just Whistle, and he'd come running (at the time he says this, Yuna can't whistle at all, and it takes some time for her to learn). It never happened in that game, but look what happened here.

Mediator: Tries to play the role of negotiator between Tidus and Jecht. It defuses somewhat, but The Emperor doesn't want Tidus not to fight. It leads to Jecht saving Tidus, becoming a Warrior of Chaos due to it. Thus, her attempt at mediating the two causes their fighting in Dissidia.

Gameplay and Combat Tropes

A.I. Breaker: Playing her against humans can go either way, depending on relative skill and opponents involved, but the computer opponents fall before her like dominoes. The most infamous example of this is her Megaflare move, but Energy Ray is almost as good, and her other three HP attacks are all apparently very difficult for the CPU to handle.

Yuna danceson a column of water as she conjures all her Aeons to attack the opponent in sequence with all their special attacks and Overdrives. Rings of light close in on a displayed button command, and the player must press that button just before the ring vanishes to continue the attack. Yuna finishes the EX Burst completing her sending dance and dissolving the enemy into a swarm of pyreflies.

Overshadowed by Awesome: Once the novelty of her summonings wear off, Yuna isn't really a stand-out character, with a highly limited pool of attacks that don't do all that impressive damage, and limited combo potential among them.

Boring but Practical: However, she has some of the best anit-A.I. moves in the game (especially against the final boss), and her moves, though lacking in damage, are straightforward and versatile. Falls just short of being a Skill Gate Character, though.

Originally planned as the XI representative in the original Dissidia, but ended up replaced by Shantotto. But now, the foulmouthed elvaan joins the Warriors of Cosmos.

General Tropes

Badass: Charged up, her bare-handed punch combos can crush guards and deflect attacks, which combined with their length and power, roughly makes her the female version of Jecht... with purple hair and frills.

Big Eater: In FFXI, Prishe was known for consuming food items (with stat bonuses attached) in battle. When the player fights against her in the Heroine's Combat BCNM, she would often ask her teammates for food items whenever she performs a weaponskill. This is referenced by her accessory for crafting her exclusive weapon, the Tarragoner, a high level cooking ingredient in FFXI. One must wonder how she still manages to keep such a slim figure.

In addition, Prishe has no less than eleven hidden battle quotes in the game that all revolve around food. They replace most of her HP attack quotes, her quote for entering EX Mode, and her line that begins her EX Burst.

Breakout Character: As with Shantotto, she's received much wider exposure due to her appearance in this game and her popularity has increased accordingly.

Cool Big Sis: Prishe is the ultimate Cool Big Sister. She practically raised the Warrior of Light by herself after she discovered him, frequently giving him advice on the nature of existence. As well as being generally an all-around awesome friend to him.

Death Seeker: Her status as such in Final Fantasy XI is referenced by the intro quotes for both Chaos and her Mirror Match.

Madam Swearsalot: Has a very foul mouth in comparison to the rest of the cast, and uses mild language frequently. The two that will likely pop up most often are her Assist call ("It's about damn time!") and her defeat quote ("Aw heeeeeeell!")

The Nicknamer: Just like in her original game, this time she appoints herself the one who has to come up with a name for the Warrior of Light. She quickly does, but the player never learns what it was. She even makes a note to tell it to Cosmos incase she forgets it herself.

Prishe activates her Two-Hour Ability as a Monk. She glows with an aura of energy and equips Power Fists. In addition to Regen, Prishe's EX Mode gives her the following ability.

Hundred Fists: The aforementioned Two-Hour Ability, which automatically chains the second attack in Prishe's combos twice, letting her link three attacks together at once for extra damage and possibly two Skillchains.

Two-Hour Ability also gives her access to her EX Burst: The Five Lights.

Lightning Bruiser: She has one of the fastest movement speeds in the game, her attacks come out fast, and the charged-up ones hurt a lot. As with all charged attacks, charging them takes out the "fast" part, but Prishe can use her unique combo gimmick to chain fast attacks into charging attacks, drastically reducing their charge time for no loss of power.

Mighty Glacier: However, her HP attacks really leave a lot to be desired, executing slowly and not being very difficult to avoid.

Megaton Punch: Howling Fist, which can be charged up like a wind-up punch.

Mythology Gag: Amusingly, Prishe's best weapon grants her a bonus to her Assist Gauge. Because of how incredibly easy her HP attacks typically are to avoid, an Assist character is almost required/ extremely useful for maximizing her effectiveness. This means one of the representatives of the first MMO in the Final Fantasy franchise works best when fighting together with other characters.

General Tropes

Big Brother Instinct: Vaan gets very protective of the Onion Knight when they meet, thinking it's wrong for a kid to be involved in the war, and tries to act as a Big Brother Mentor to him. The Onion Knight is clearly annoyed by it, but accepts that Vaan is now his official big brother, whether he likes it or not.

The Dulcinea Effect: He saves Terra from Kefka's torture even after having once fought her before.

Then again, if she's being tortured by him, chances are they aren't allies any more.

Fearless Fool: Vaan barely bats an eyelash when told marching on manikin headquarters would spell almost certain doom, confident that it would be no problem for him. This earns him some ire from Lightning, who is annoyed by his optimism. In a later scene, Vaan shows he isn't quite as confident as he lets on, mentioning to himself that he would have liked to keep his promise to see Terra again.

Hypocritical Humor: Really, Vaan? You of all people shouldn't be telling the Cloud Of Darkness to put on a shirt.

Idiot Hero: Is Flanderized into this from XII. He has trouble remembering simple names, and mistakes Terra for Tidus and Tifa before he gets it right — keep in mind as he ponders this, Tifa is traveling in the party with him.

Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Most characters have attack names that are decidedly... flowery. Stuff like "Radiant Wings," "Dayflash", and "Flourish Of Steel." Vaan, though, has very simply-named Bravery attacks. The attack where he uses his spear? "Spear." The attack where he uses his crossbow? "Crossbow." At least we won't be forgetting the names any time soon.

Vaan gains a golden aura of Mist energy and exchanges all of his weapons for their ultimate counterparts, symbolizing that he's completed the License Grid and has earned the ability to equip them. In addition to Regen, Vaan's EX Mode gives him the following abilities:

Zodiak: Thus increases the power of all of Vaan's weapon attacks and gives his Switch Attacks more follow up hits.

Free Switch: By pressing R+Square, Vaan is able to change his weapon instantly into bare hands, allowing him to pull off better switch attack combos.

Obtained All Licenses also gives him access to his EX Burst: Quickening.

Vaan launches into his series of Quickenings. First is RedSpiral, an upward spiral of blue flames that turns into a pillar of fire dropping down on the enemy. Second is WhiteWhorl, a giant tornado generated by a spiraling uppercut. Third is Pyroclasm, two fireballs thrown at the enemy which explode into a massive sea of flames. A perfect string will result in Luminescence: the enemy is trapped between two circles of runes and blasted with light energy.

"Here! Rupture! Burst! How's this? Stings, huh?"

Flying Weapon: When using his staff switch attack, Vaan will use magic to have the staff float and attack on its own.

Instant Runes: Vaan's HP Attacks are the Concurrences that are cast after Quickenings, complete with giant magick circles.

Multi-Melee Master/Multi-Ranged Master: Vaan is able to switch between weapon types for each of his attacks, and each weapon does bonus damage or has an additional effect if he's swapping out one weapon for another, encouraging player variation. Among the weapons he uses are:

From Final Fantasy XIII, Claire "Lightning" Farron with her latest-tech Gunblade is now among the cast of Dissidia. She has the ability to switch between Commando, Ravager, and Medic roles during gameplay, exploring a lot of moves.

Knight in Sour Armor: She'll do what's right, but she is by far the bitterest character in the entire game and is very cynical. This puts her at odds with Vaan and Laguna, who by contrast are cheerful and optimistic.

What Could Have Been: She was originally planned to be an unlockable character in the first Dissidia. The idea was scrapped due to Final Fantasy XIII not yet being released at the time. Also, her design and moveset for XIII had not yet been finalized, and they didn't want to force anything to be set in stone by including her in Dissidia.

What the Hell, Hero?: When she learns that Kain and the Warrior of Light are killing off their comrades in order to allow them to be revived by the next cycle (the Manikins would permanently kill any warriors), Lightning ends up calling the Warrior of Light, Kain, AND Cosmos out on that plan.

Design and Costume Tropes

Art Evolution: Inverted. Lightning was obviously designed to appear using Playstation 3 graphics, so while she looks fine in artwork and CG scenes, the PSP can't show the finer details of her design in the level of detail demanded for her to look right. As a result, it's especially obvious when looking at her renders that it's a series of textures applied to a character model.

Gameplay and Combat Tropes

Awesome but Impractical: Army of One may be her personal Limit Break and looks cool, but it's actually weaker than her basic three-hit Launch and Smite attacks and has a much longer start-up. The only advantage it has on them is that is produces more EX Force, which isn't a great boon when that only takes effect if you can hit with it.

The Gestalt Mode dial will appear and Lightning must input the button and analog combination to unleash Storm Blade, Lightning Strike, Razor Gale, and Thunderfall on the enemy before the time runs out. If you miss an input, Lightning will skip directly to the final blow, Zantetsuken, in which she holds her blades out and spins rapidly, hammering the foe with a storm of blows. She then kneels with her back to the enemy as the effects of the attack catch up with them.

"Let's finish this! Bullseye."

Full-Contact Magic: Most of Lightning's HP Attacks have her casting thunder or wind magic with her Zantetsuken swords.

Jack of All Stats: Her HP attacks are versatile across close and long-range, her gunblade blows are simple but effective, and her spells can stun or distract opponents. Her downside, similar to the other Jack of All Stats, the Warrior of Light, is a limited pool of reliable attacks, combined with her Paradigm Shift only letting her use certain attacks at a time and telegraphing which she's preparing for.

Useless Useful Spell: Her Medic Paradigm and its Cure abilities. The ability to rapidly recovery Bravery without attacking is only useful in very circumstantial situations, as they don't heal that much, require several seconds to execute fully, in the case of Cura need proper timing to heal the maximum amount, and she has no offensive Bravery attacks as a Medic. In practice Medic is more a nuisance than an aid, since you also need to shift to it when going from Commando to Ravager, and its only practical use is being a passive baiting tool (like The Emperor's Starfall but without any significant consequence) with varied results. For this reason many players de-equip her Medic abilities (also de-equipping Medic itself) and focus on Commando and Ravager, and the 2015 Dissidia removes Medic from her playstyle entirely to do the same.

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